It never ceases to amaze that after almost 5 years, they still don't get it.

Are they willfully blind?

Japs are bombing Pearl again.

Were winning because were still here. On September 12th 2001, I didnt give us such good odds.

Whats the plan? Well its not very imaginative, but it is simple and so far, its working.

The plan is this - Just dont give up.

Terrorism is simply another method to do the one thing that all military action is supposed to do, that is to cause the enemy to lose the will to fight. Terrorism is enormously ineffective if the people that are supposed to be terrorised into negotaiting terms with you in fear instead turn your cities into rubble, or in our case, turn your women into voters.

Strategy isnt all chess pieces on the board, sometimes its about just having the will to resist.

We really do not win until we convince the Iraqis (and others in the Sandbox) that the United States will not cut and run again as it did in Lebanon and Somalia, nor will it leave its erstwhile allies in the lurch as we did in the aftermath of the first PG War.

We were in an occupation/support mode in Germany for more than seven years after Big Mistake Number Two (not including the West Berlin garrison), and for six-plus years in Japan. In each of those cases, people at years #2 and #3 were griping about how we are "losing the peace" and how the "occupation is turning victory into defeat."

Perhaps victory can be defined as grabbing folks like Kevin Drum by the scruff and making them actually learn some fookin' history.

Exactly. Whatever it takes is whatever it takes, which is not giving up.

The demand for a plan... and yes, our people have plans, that's what all those generals get paid to do in their copious spare time... misses the fundamental point that whatever plan we have has to be fluid. The only part that *can't* be fluid is the "don't give up" part.

It would be foolish to demand that the *plan* be layed out in any sort of detailed way because tomorrow things may change. Because the enemy gets a vote too. Because supporting a truely independant democracy in Iraq (or Afghanistan) is an aweful lot like hearding cats. (Imposing puppet governments or our own dictatorships, of course, would be more predictable and less like hearding cats.)

Don't give up *is* a plan. All the rest is details.

We've been fighting the wars and battles against crime since we came out of the caves and 50,000 years later we've not won that one either.

Point is: how to fight a battle when the battleground is between the ears?

Also, how to fight when many have no less desire than to see you LOSE. The various moonbats seem unable to see the consequences a loss would have for THEM (at least).

Point is: how to fight a battle when the battleground is between the ears?

Use a rifle with a decent scope.

Kill enough of the meme-carriers, and the surviving meme-carriers tend to decide that particular meme is not conducive to survival.

Check out this priceless bit from Kevin Drum: http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2006_04/008568.php

What I want to know is, does Drum believe his own bullshit or does he just write for the satisfaction of entertaining his audience? He’s been lacking that glint of rationality and acknowledgement of reality that he used to have.

Why do people continue to purport that knowledge of dissenting opinions was relevant outside of the president’s office and that the president was obligated to present and focus on them? The president was making a case for the war, not facilitating a debate.

Maybe it’s my own cynicism, I never consider intelligence as the absolute truth, but I don’t remember intelligence being presented as facts and absolutes. It was always likely possibilities. I thought we went into Iraq for strategic reasons and for what we didn’t know, not what we did.

Listening to you guys talk about victory brings to mind an image of Captain Smith on the bridge of the Titanic as the bows dips under the waves and he boldly makes plans for how he will spend his first day in New York.

Drum worries warbloggers want to reinstate the draft...

Do you think he really worries about that? Or is he still sane and informed enough to realize the only people truly trying to reinstate the draft are left-wing Democrats?

Of course, you all are right that persistence is the key here. For all those who want to hear a plan to win the war (or "win the peace"--whatever that means), the decision of when we will win rests mainly in the minds of our enemies. We will win when they think they've had enough.

"...leaving the Middle East to its own devices virtually guarantees a regional conflict?...

Let's not forget that it is not just a regional conflict that would result from our leaving the Mid-East. Like it or not, for the forseeable future, the world runs on oil. Ensuring stability in the Mid-East is in the interests just about everybody on this planet. If the Islamists have their way and run the infidels out of their part of the world, we all will suffer.

Stephen,

You wrote a very good response to Drum.

"Victory depends on your definition of the word, and Drum doesn’t supply one - even while he complains that nobody else has."

Exactly! He and others like to complain but offer no solutions of their own. It's so much easier to sit on the sidelines and snipe at the efforts of others.

"Drum prefers the Good Old Days when Saddam was killing at least as many Iraqis as the insurgency is, and UN sanctions were killing even more. Drum would prefer that Iraq remain under Saddam’s boot, then to even allow them a chance at freedom. I’m proud to say we took a different course."

Yes, he and many others cry about the freedoms and liberties that THEY take for granted, but do not think that these same freedoms are worht the fight to help others achieve. Even if it is in our long term interests as well.

That sentiment is revealing on so many levels.
I guess those brown people don't really deserve or understand freedom. They need that loving heel of Saddam on their necks. It keep them in line. You know how they get when they're free.

I agree with your implication that by perpetuating the status quo as it existed before we went into Iraq, indeed, before 9/11, we would guarantee a wider and much bloodier conflict with a much less certain outcome and a bleaker future for us all regardless of that outcome. This is something Drum and others who oppose this war either do not see or cynically ignore.

Drum and his ideological fellow travellers hate Bush so much that they would allow the lives lost and the blood spilt to be all in vain so they can say, "I told you so."

I suspect that they are so far gone that nothing, not 9/11, not perhaps even a second 9/11 will be worth fighting about in their eyes. After all, it's so hard to get a good skinny decaf latte in the warzone.

Stephen,

Drum worries warbloggers want to reinstate the draft, or that we’ll have to raise taxes (no complaint here – we’ve got to pay for this war),

Just a nit, but to me an important one: government receipts go UP when taxes go down (at least when inside tax yield curves.) If you "got to pay for this war" - you want receipts not raised taxes. The evidence is pretty clear: government receipts have gone up - dramatically - at federal and state levels since tax cuts have been in place.

On topic: the original intent (Powell doctrine: have a clear objective) was to remove the dictator, free the people to form their own government, remove a haven and support for terrorists, get definitive resolution on WMD.

Removed Dictator: check
Freed people to form their own government: Check, but
Removed haven and support: partial at best
Definitive resolution on WMD: check, sorta (Syria?)

I'd say we are somewhere between 2.5 to 3.5 on a scale of 4 as measured by those original objectives. Of course, the partisans will move the goal posts until we conceed that we haven't halted all traffic accidents in the country and therefore haven't suceeded.

Let me play a semantic game, as I was an English major. We speak of it as still being a war, but there are no active battles raging. And I'm pretty sure we didn't lose any engagements (Fallulja may be debatable), so the phase we've entered seems to be more counterinsurgency and reconstruction than anything else. The left speaks of losing the war, but is it truly a war when more efforts appear to be made toward infrastructure, government-building, and security than active combat?

Wouldn't it benefit the right and the administration to work on re-framing where we are at this stage?

Sidenote: my boss' son just got back from Iraq after a 7-month hitch. No injuries or casualties in his platoon or unit. Thank God!

Victory requires a stable representative govt. in Iraq, but it goes beyond that. We simply must transform the region so that the business of usual of oppressing the people to keep the oil flowing goes away. We have to create a situation where in game theory the population of the Middle East can choose that it is wiser not to defect from cooperation. If we do not do that, increasing numbers of them will want to kill us and we will have no choice but to kill them. The body count will be enourmous.

doug

Right, doug. Individual missions can be accomplished. Individual battles won. None of that means it's *over*. It's not going to *be* over. Not even when the region is stable and the Iraqis enjoy a representative government and are accustomed to genuinely free elections (maybe the toddlers who go with their parents to the polls today will be so accustomed by the time they take their own toddlers to the polls with them.)

And it's not that goal posts move, it's that this is real life and it doesn't end when the game is over and one side "wins." It goes on.

Irao contains three distinct peoples, and a significant chunk of each group is very very interested in making sure the other two don't get political power (or in some cases survive until tomorrow). Two of those groups have fundamental faith differences that have caused wars in the region for centuries and will not be resolved. Ever. Beliefs at that level cannot be changed and they are older than the U.S. itself.

This is not a recipe for creating a stable government in the region. The base ingredients are wrong. We removed a dictator who needed to be removed, and I'll agree with John Lynch on our achievements to date. But the flip side of "don't give up" is "face reality." It would be a great day if the majority of Iraqi citizens in each faction took it into their own hands to wipe out the minorities within their own groups who advocate violence. But U.S. troops have no ability to make that happen. They can make the insurgents suffer once they're violent, they can arm and train the Iraqis hoping they'll put those arms and that training to good use, but they can't erase the root causes of that violence. The Iraqis have to do it themselves. Or it's not democracy, folks.

And considering that Iraqi Sunnis have started in on the grudge killings of "insurgents" (or exurgents, more accurately), grad03, I'd say we see movement on this front as well.

The fact that religious factions exist now in Iraq and throughout the Middle East that have existed for centuries is a barrier but not an insurmountable one. After all, less than fifteen hundred years ago, there were no Sunnis, no Shi'ites - no Muslims at all. Then something happened that changed their world: Mohammed. Just as, two thousand-odd years ago, a tiny Jewish sect turned different because of its contact with Jesus, and now constitutes an entire group of sects numbering a billion souls. Just as, half a millenium ago, the mega-religion that was Christianity splintered under its own weight, giving rise to all those other sects - and all these things without the benefit of truly mass long-distance media.

My point being that history is all well and good, and we ignore it at our peril, but it's not a death sentence. By definition, it's already happened; it's not precognition.

I glossed over one of your fundamental points, though, grad03: you say, "Beliefs at that level can't be changed." What a teddibly teddibly patronizing thing to say.

That is all.

Julie,

Yes, it is never over. Many people bemoan the cycle of violence as if it is something that can be stopped. I do not think it can. It is part of the human condition. The more people who think we must have peace at all costs, the more you create big rewards for the defectors. Hitler understood this, and capitalized on it. You would think the world would have learned. You must make it clear that you will kill the ruthless if they try to f*** with you. You must do so ruthlessly and just deal with the irony of that. Western values are worth preserving.

Unfortunately as megadeat becomes cheaper and cheaper this means that we are perhaps screwed in the long run.

jamie,

Actually, I think it's much more patronizing for the U.S. to assume that they can either overcome religious beliefs through appeals to reason, or politically harmonize the sects without understanding the fundamental differences between them in the first place.

And there are plenty of people making that mistake who are not testing their own core assumption that democracy is a higher value than those people already hold.

I'm not a relativist, but that is an assumption and I'm pointing that out. Transforming core beliefs that are impervious to reason, at the individual-values level, is indeed impossible for outsiders to a culture to do.

Grad03,

You are right that it is only an assumption that democracy is a higher value. I personally am ok if they never adopt representative goverment, but when certain elements from ther region make it clear that they want to kill us, and that part of the claimed reason for feeling that way (a not completely illegitimate claim) is that our realpolotik of supporting brutality to keep the oil flowing makes them want to kill us, something has to change. And the oil has to flow. The west must attain a situation where the people of the region agree to keep the oil flowing and to stop trying to kill us. It is my belief that our support for dictators of convenience must end. In my opinion, the only alternative is chaos or representative governments. Democracy is a high value to me and I want it defended. Unfortunately I conclude that this means we must support democratic reforms there, not always, but at least sometimes through force of arms.

Will that fail? It very well might. If it does, the only measure of progress will be body count. And that is not good...

doug

Ha ha ha, you took Kevin Drum seriously. The jokes on you.

Somebody said we were in Japan 6+ years. Might want to check todays FT article about how we're negotiating with Japan on the redeployment of our 50,000 soldiers still there.

Democratic virtues, control over your own destiny, is a higher idea, or atleast a different one, from religion. I challenge anybody for proof otherwise.

Let's take Iran. Popular revolution sweeps in theocratic government? In their first parliamentary elections, with their thugs out in force and rampant fraud, the shi'ite religious blocks still only won 120 of the 270 seats. That was when they resorted to force to take over the rest of the government, shoving their theocracy down Iran's throat.

No. Religion doesn't stand in the way of democracy. Greed does. Religion is merely a tool for those enjoying the ME's ridiculous oil revenues to keep the masses in line and perpetuate their autocracies.

Victory. We should define it as how Japan and Germany ended up. Anything less than an economically successful, democratically stable, strife free nation should keep our soldiers in there.

How? Put more soldiers in there. Raise taxes so that we can fund them. Spend more on reconstruction (20 billion is measly). Aim high. Don't take the training wheels off the Iraqi government until its ready(it's as corrupt as hell).

You don't need to be Einstein to produce these solutions, you just need to have some spine.

I'd sure like to hear of any "warbloggers" who want a draft. I don't know of a single one of us in the Service that wants a conscript next to him or her...c'mon Drum, you have to do better than that.

Greetings -

You've pointed out what appear to be some very common errors. I noted the same problem, in none other than the otherwise luminous William F. Buckley, on my own wonderful blog, here:

http://forgottenprophets.blogspot.com/2006/04/lion-falters.html

What's with these people? It's a freshman skill, defining your terms. And I mean, high school freshmen.

It can't be a novel observation, but I've maintained, here

http://forgottenprophets.blogspot.com/2006/03/parallels.html

that we are indeed in WW IV. Every analogy to Pearl Harbor and Nazis is valid. Ah well.

Prevail!!!

;-)

Jack H

People who today insist it is impossible to IMPOSE democratic government on a population cannot recall that the Western Allies (i.e., The United Nations of WWII, and most especially the United States of America) did in fact manage to coax and cajole and bully and cultivate civilized democratic governments in the formerly totalitarian fascist CULTURES of Germany and Japan.

Took a little over a decade.

People these days seem to be suffering from an intensifying case of amnesia.

And what was the prerequisite for that, David? Warre. Not the namby-pamby thing we call war today. Dresden. Hiroshima. 100,000 burned alive in Tokyo. Mass starvation through submarine blockade. Whole cities and their populations bombed into rubble and corpses.

We are trying to do something that has never succeeded in all history: win over people who haven't had their a**ses sufficiently kicked that they know in their bones: "We are conquered. Resistance is not merely futile, it is nothing but instant death." Contrast what happened in Germany after WWI and WWII. After WWI, because we never conquered Germany, they were able to tell themselves comforting lies about being "stabbed in the back", about how they "could have won, except for the Jewish Conspiracy."

Unless we are prepared to do all the killing necessary to win, we might as well get measured for our burkas, because we will lose.

SDN - Your analysis is incomplete. Revolutions can be imposed, and without all-out war - eg, Meiji Japan. It isn't blood, it's will, that makes the difference.

J